Abstract: It is a growing concern for researchers to understand the online games from the perspective of motivations. The researches of motivations for playing online games included: (1) Types of motivations. Among numerous motivations, enjoyment has been upper most in researchers’ mind, and flow, social interaction, escapism, curiosity and competition were in the next place. (2) The influence of motivations, embraced personality and the interaction of social and individuals in online games. (3) The effect of motivations on online gamers’ intentions and behaviors, included fun, social and achievement. (4) The mechanism of motivations contained the mediating role of motivations for playing online games, mediator and moderator between motivations and behavioral intention for playing online games. Future studies should pay attention to the division and integration of motivations for playing online games, and investigating them from the perspective of developmental psychology, formation and developmental process of motivations and emotion.

Key words: online games, motivations, developmental process